Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has entertained not only children but adults for over one hundred years. The tale has become a treasure of philosophers, literary critics, psychoanalysts, and linguists. It also has attracted Carroll's fellow mathematicians and logicians. There appears to be something in Alice for everyone, and there are almost as many explanations of the work as there are commentators. It may be perhaps Carroll's fantastical style of writing that entertains the reader, rather than teaching them a lesson as was customary in his time. Heavy literary symbolism is difficult to trace through his works because of the fact he wrote mainly for entertainment. In fact, Carroll's stories, including Alice, are usually described as being direct parallels to Carroll's life. This is obvious due to the various references Carroll makes of the favorite things in his life such as his obsession with little girls and not to mention his nostalgia for childhood1. The most prominent interpretation of Alice is the theme of fantasy versus reality. The story continuously challenges the reader's sense of the "ground rules" or what can be assumed. However, with a more in-depth search, the adult reader can find Carroll may have indeed implanted a theme relative to the confusion Alice goes through as well as the reader. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll uses not only his love for children and logic but his linguistic playfulness to create a story in order to show the psyche of a child. Moreover, Carroll makes fun of the way Victorian children were raised. In the nineteenth century people were expected to behave according to a set of rules and morals. Carroll's nonsense behavior of his characters can be seen as making fun of the way children were forced to behave. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland overall is contradicting the standard way children's literature was written. As one can see, the story of Alice takes its reader through many different levels. With the lovable creation of a fantastical world, Carroll invites his readers on a nonsensical yet familiar journey of the questioning of identity by child yearning to take the step into adulthood prematurely, enabling him to entertain while simultaneously satirizing the Victorian Era. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland begins with Alice sitting beside her sister commenting, "what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations" (Carroll 3). Alice's narrow point of view will now begin to raise fundamental questions in her head about who she is. Alice "has reached the stage of development where the world appears explainable and unambiguous where, paradoxically, curiosity is wedded to the ignorant faith in the sanity of things" (qtd. In Otten 50). Alice's curiosity will proceed to carry her on a complete rebirth in order to question the inevitable step from childhood to adulthood. It seems to her that she is quite the young adult. This is not such an unfamiliar thought as it is quite usual for a young child to want to behave as an adult. Her journey will sure enough challenge her belief of who she is. This journey begins when she "found herself falling down a very deep well" (Carroll 5). By falling down this hole, Alice is acting as a father. In hitting the bottom of the well she has moved on to the fetal stage. The first problem Alice encounters is finding a way to fit through the little door so small that she could not even fit her head through the doorway. She soon find a bottle labeled "drink me". "The wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry" (At this point, Alice is still behaving the way a proper Victorian child would conduct themselves in the Victorian period.) She must find a way to exit the "womb" she is in so she can question the world she exists in. Thus, she compromises to drink what's in the bottle causing her to shrink in size. This is the beginning of what the reader will see as Alice's way of questioning her identity. Being...

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...the ambiguity of symbolism in LewisCarroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In his book The Art of Fiction, David Lodge described poetic symbolism as being "characterised by a shimmering surface of suggested meanings without a denotative core." In this essay, Lodge's definition will be used to aid the discussion of LewisCarroll's use of ambiguous symbolism in his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Key images in the book such as the infamous Hookah smoking caterpillar on his mushroom and Wonderland itself will be discussed as well as the character of The Queen of Hearts and The Mad Hatter. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the eponymous setting is representative of many things - much like Lodge's hypothesis, there is no denotative core to the symbolism of Wonderland. One of the book's most iconic images is that of a "large blue caterpillar" sitting upon a mushroom "quietly smoking a long hookah". It is an image that since the 1960s has sparked controversy over the alleged motif of drug use in a children's book - despite the fact the mid nineteenth century was a period where opium, laudanum and other hallucinogenic drugs were widely available and were not considered dangerous. The mushroom has long been considered a symbol of such drug use, because Alice uses pieces of the mushroom to alter her physical state. This...

...Chapter I
Lewis Carroll in Wonderland :
the Influence of Lewis Carroll on Alice
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known under the pen name Lewis Carroll, was a British author, mathematician, logician and photographer and he has always delighted the audience from the most naive to the most sophisticated, with his facilities at word play, logic and fantasy. Carroll suffered from a bad stammer, but he found himself vocally fluent when speaking with children. The relationships he had with young people in his adult years are of great interest, as they undoubtedly inspired his best-known writings. Carroll loved to entertain children, and it was Alice, the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who can be credited as the real Alice. While writing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Carroll doubtlessly drew his inspiration from his direct environment, he has provided Alice with some instances of his own identity. In a biography that is dedicated to him, *Harold Bloom assumes that many aspects of LewisCarroll's life influenced his writings. Some of these aspects include his mathematical background and logical dispositions, as well as a shown interest in little girls, eating habits, dual personality, sleeping difficulties, Victorian lifestyle and neglected childhood. These characteristics of his life are reflected in his most...

...The Curiosity, Imagination and Creativity of a Child
Alice in Wonderland is a Disney movie based on LewisCarroll’s novel Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. The movie Alice in Wonderland is one of Disney’s unique productions with distinctive characters and also a plot line. The initial story started with a plot in which Alice was sitting by a river bank with her older sister as she reads a borrowed book. The book was boring, didn’t have any images, had no conversation, and wasn’t interesting for Alice. In the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland the movie starts with a history lesson, a scene that appeared in the Caucus Race. Also, the Disney movie dismissed some chapters of the novel such as: A Caucus Race and a Long Tale, The Mock Turtle’s Story, and The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill. Instead the movie is filled up with lots of fantasy that is different from the original tale creating an integrated story. Disney completes the movie by adding their touch of stereotypes and subliminal messages. There are number of scenes that call attention to gender roles, drug use, and class struggle. This essay will analyze these messages and explain their impact on children.
Alice, the main character of the movie, is a young teen between the age of ten and twelve. She is slightly younger than most female characters in...

...Alice In Wonderland Literary Analysis
Many themes are explored when reading Lewis Carrol’s, Alice in Wonderland. Themes of childhood innocence, child abuse, dream, and others. Reading the story, it was quite clear to see one particular theme portrayed through out the book: child to adult progression. Alice in Wonderland is full of experiences that lead Alice to becoming more of herself and that help her grow up. It’s a story of trial, confusion, understanding, and success. And more confusion. Though others might argue that the story was distinctly made for children just to get joy out of funny words, and odd circumstances, the tale has obvious dynamics that confirm the fact of it being a coming of age story.
Each encounter with the individual characters represent some part of childhood, or some part of being a child. It’s the whole growing process of childhood to adulthood. Each character is part of the child growing process. From the White Rabbit, to the Red Queen, every one displays some part of childhood we’re all familiar with. Alice is the child growing, and experiencing all the changes accompanied with growing up, and these characters demonstrate the qualities of every stage. "Alice is by habit a questioning child whose thoughts are constantly reported to the reader as being of equal interest to the strange happenings as he...

...read and enjoy LewisCarroll'sAlice in Wonderland books as a child? Or better still, did you have someone read them to you? Perhaps you discovered them as an adult or, forbid the thought, maybe you haven't discovered them at all! Those who have journeyed Through the Looking Glass generally love (or shun) the tales for their unparalleled sense of nonsense.
Public interest in the books--from the time they were published more than a century ago--has almost been matched by curiosity about their author. Many readers are surprised to learn that the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and a host of other absurd and captivating creatures sprung from the mind of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a shy, stammering Oxford mathematics professor.
Dodgson was a deacon in his church, an inventor, and a noted children's photographer. Wonderland, and thus the seeds of his unanticipated success as a writer, appeared quite casually one day as he spun an impromptu tale to amuse the daughters of a colleague during a picnic. One of these girls was Alice Liddell, who insisted that he write the story down for her, and who served as the model for the heroine.
Dodgson eventually sought to publish the first book on the advice of friends who had read and loved the little handwritten manuscript he had given to Alice Liddell. He expanded the story considerably and engaged the services of John Tenniel, one of...

...Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
I would like to start by saying that I hated this book. It made no sense to me, and the entire time I felt that the author was on crack. I was expecting it to be a great book, because I loved the movie so much (animated one). The book never had a sensible plot, it was just this annoying little girl who was having these twisted dreams that made no sense to me, although I do realize that they have deeper social/political meanings. It is a complicated and intelligent novel that only smart and analytical people can understand it, while actually enjoying it too. In some sense the craziness of the novel kind of makes sense because it is a dream, and dreams can be quite ridiculous. I did not like the novel because it did not have an exciting climax or conflict. I never had the feeling of anticipation while reading it, or any enthusiasm whatsoever. The book had a lot of puns and poems that a lot of people enjoy, but I personally hate puns and poems. Overall the book was not a good match for me, and I will be more careful in choosing my novel next time.
RAWLIPS
Wisdom of Youth:
Alice is constantly challenged of who she is and how she perceives things, but by the end she is the same little girl with the same outlook of life. She remains true to herself.
Loss of Innocence:
This seems to be the more apparent theme in the entire novel. Alice’s loss of...

...Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll depicts the world of Wonderland as an enchanting place where magical and fascinating things seem to happen. However despite its fairytale qualities, Wonderland comes across as a bit strange and unconventional fantasy land appropriate for that of a child’s imagination. In Wonderland, there are no charming human beings or friendly animals who sing along to cheerful tunes, as we see in most children’s story books. Instead, Wonderland is filled with curious creatures who tend to behave in a bizarre and peculiar manner. As Alice ventures out on her journey in Wonderland and comes into contact with these different creatures, she quickly realizes that politeness and good behavior is not responded to in a positive way. In spite of Alice’s attempts to be amiable and pleasant, the creatures of Wonderland continue to be rude to her, as well as to each other.
Although Alice learns of Wonderland’s eccentricities shortly after falling into the rabbit hole, her first real experience of impudent behavior occurs when she encounters the blue caterpillar resting on the mushroom. Upon seeing Alice, the caterpillar bluntly asks “Who are you?” Rather surprised, Alice answers "I — I hardly know, Sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I...

...Finding Sense In Senselessness
A senseless world is creatively put together by Lewis Carroll to become a very imaginative plot of entertainment, yet is has yielded a variety of concerns that relate to life throughout the novel. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass relate to a dream-like world that is full of adventures that of which a young girl, Alice, accompanied by various animals, insects, and imaginary characters experience. Carroll has not only created an abstract character group, but has also taken Alice from our ordinary world and put her into a world of playing cards and chess pieces. Through all of the nonsense that is depicted in Alice, an important theme is growing up. The senselessness of Alice's dream world becomes a contradiction on the ordered ordinary world. Carroll’s work gives many messages to its readers through the formalist perspective; the form of literary works that emphasize to determine its meaning by focusing on literary elements. Alice's repeated encounters with meaninglessness and senselessness are shown through not only Alice, but through the other characters and the absurd adventures they go through.
Senselessness seems to be the principal of the story and, the leitmotif of the whole affair. In Alice, all that is known and recognized is shown and revealed by the unprejudiced look of a kid that sheds light...